The Supreme Court of New South Wales acquitted on Thursday Matthew Spencer, a diagnosed schizophrenic, of murdering his father due to mental illness, according to the Daily Mail.
The court Acting Justice Peter Hidden ruled out that Spencer, who claimed US rap artist Jay Z spurred him on, should stay in detention until a court rules he no longer represents a danger to the society.
The accused reportedly admitted killing his father at inside their home at Trundle, near Parkes in September 2018. He was said also to have called the police himself to let them know he had stabbed his father, Shane Spencer.
“Gangsta rap made me do it. The Jay Z Encore, the song that made me do it,” Spencer told Trundle Police, cited by the Daily Mail.
The suspect’s attorneys argued in the court that their client should be found not guilty because of mental status. Crown prosecutor Liam Shaw reportedly agreed with this submission.
Lawyers submitted to the court a psychiatric forensic report that concluded that the accused “did not know that [what he was doing] was wrong”.
The report said that, at the time of the crime, Spencer was “labouring under such a defect of reason arising from a disease of the mind that he did not know the nature and quality of the act he was committing”.
According to the report, Spencer was repeatedly sent for treatment for “psychosis-based religious delusions” in the period between 2016 and 2019. The report added that the man “exhibited paranoid religious ideation in relation to being Jesus, Lucifer and the devil” in the months before conducting the crime.
Lawyers told the court that Spencer’s mental illness was probably aggravated due to the substance abuse and use of amphetamines. They narrated that following the murder the accused took to social media and wrote “bizarre posts”. He was also seen that day in a hotel in Trundle drinking and smoking with his hands and clothes bloodstained.
“Trust God. It’s written in the stars. No satellites can change it. I’m sorry once again. But I gotta show no love. Love will get you killed,” Spencer wrote on social media, according to the Daily Mail.